Facile mechanochemical synthesis of non-stoichiometric silica-carbon composite for enhanced lithium storage properties

A large number of new electrode materials and novel structural designs are emerging for lithium-ion batteries, yet scalable synthesis and raw material costs still hinder the practical application of such materials. Here, we designed and fabricated a low-cost SiOx/C composite by a facile and scalable mechanofusion route with a ball-milling method. We selected aerosil and graphite precursor-needle coke, which are two widely used materials in industry, as a silicon source and carbon source, respectively. This SiOx/C composite shows a high reversible capacity (ca. 550 mAh g−1) at the 180th cycle and good rate performance. Our scalable synthesis route of electrode materials can stimulate the progress of other energy storage technologies for practical applications

Surface Functionalization of PHBV by HEMA Grafting via UV Treatment. Comparison with Thermal Free Radical Polymerization

International audienc

Multimode excitation during the inter-ELM-crash periods in KSTAR H-mode plasma

Temporal and spatial modulation of the edge localized mode (ELM) structure has been observed during the inter-ELM-crash period by toroidally-separated two electron cyclotron emission imaging systems. The observed modulation is interpreted as a beat wave of two modes with adjacent toroidal mode number. An additional assumption is that each mode has to have a different poloidal rotation speed. In nonlinear simulation, the low-n mode can be driven by locking between the dominant modes. The modulation is reconstructed using beat waves not the locking of modesclose0

Comparison of measured 2D ELMs with synthetic images from BOUT plus plus simulation in KSTAR

A detailed study of edge-localized mode (ELM) dynamics in the KSTAR tokamak is performed using a two-dimensional (2D) electron cyclotron emission imaging (ECEI) diagnostic system. Highly coherent mode structures rotating in the poloidal view plane are routinely observed in the inter-ELM pedestal region where the optical thickness for ECE rapidly changes and the interpretation of emission intensity is complicated. To have confidence on the measurements, the observed images are compared with synthetic images of the ELM structure deduced from three-field BOUT++ simulations. The synthetic process considers instrumental effects of the ECEI diagnostic, intrinsic broadening of the ECE and background noise. The synthetic 2D images highly resemble the observed structure, providing confidence that the ELM dynamics can be visualized by ECEI.close

Estimation of the radial size and density fluctuation amplitude of edge localized modes using microwave interferometer array

A novel technique to estimate the range of radial size and density fluctuation amplitude of edge localized modes (ELMs) in the KSTAR tokamak plasma is presented. A microwave imaging reflectometry (MIR) system is reconfigured as a multi-channel microwave interferometer array (MIA) to measure the density fluctuations associated with ELMs, while electron cyclotron emission imaging (ECEI) system is used as a reference diagnostics to confirm the MIA observation. Two dimensional full-wave (FWR2D) simulations integrated with optics simulation are performed to investigate the Gaussian beam propagation and reflection through the plasma as well as the MIA optical components and obtain the interferometric phase undulations of individual channels at the detector plane due to ELM perturbation. The simulation results show that the amplitude of the phase undulation depends linearly on both radial size and density perturbation amplitude of ELM. For a typical discharge with ELMs, it is estimated that the ELM structure observed by the MIA system has density perturbation amplitude in the range similar to 7 % to 14 % while radial size in the range similar to 1 to 3 cmclos